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Integrated survey for more slums under RAY

The corporation has prepared an action plan for a slum-free city stretching over five years from 2012 and covering 741 slums, writes G.V.Prasada Sarma

Even as work on Suryatejnagar slum that has been approved in principle under the ambitious slum development programme Rajiv Awas Yojana has not been launched, GVMC is going ahead with integrated survey for 10 more slums in the city.

GVMC has already a carried a house-hold survey that put the number of families without houses at 1.6 lakh. A consultant appointed by GVMC is now working on integrating the house-hold survey with Total Station Survey and Geographical Information System (GIS). Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) will also be prepared later. The fixing of boundaries (to the slums), however, remains a tricky issue.

Having been one of the first of the five cities selected for the RAY project in the city, it completed the survey ahead of the others. Some of the cities are taking up the survey now, say sources in GVMC.

The corporation has prepared an action plan for a slum-free city stretching over five years from 2012 and covering 741 slums with an estimated expenditure of Rs.2,701 crore.

After the formal approval for taking up Suryatejnagar as a pilot project has been given early in December, there hardly has been any progress. Sources say financial pattern has not been finalised. In three acres of land, 240 houses are proposed to be developed in public private participation with a cost of Rs.13.5 crore. But how the PPP will be executed has still not been decided.

Besides for RAY itself no guidelines have been issued so far, say sources. It remains to be seen whether it will form a part of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) or a separate project, it is learnt.

In JNNURM too, while 70 per cent of the cost of the housing project is borne by the Central and State governments, the corporation has to create infrastructure like roads, drainage, street-lighting and water supply etc. Of the total cost of Rs.303 crore, about Rs.90 crore is being spent on infrastructure of which 30 per cent is the contribution of GVMC. “However, the corporation finds it beyond its capacity to create the infrastructure by footing 30 per cent,” admitted an official.

However, GVMC’s describing RAY as a ray of hope for slum-dwellers puts the cost of a housing unit at Rs.3.28 lakh with 50 per cent borne by the Union Government and State Government 20 per cent and beneficiary contribution and bank loan at 30 pr cent.